Newcastle Falcons interim head coach Gary Gold has insisted he was only ever committed to leading the club until the end of the season.

The former Springbok assistant coach was appointed in January to lead the Falcons bid to avoid relegation from the Aviva Premiership following the departure of Alan Tait. And he will return to South Africa in the summer after the club announced Dean Richards would take over as director of rugby in August.

With family back in South Africa, Gold said he was only ever able to commit to a six-month stint with the Falcons.

"The plan was always for me to come over and assist the club as best I could until the end of the season and then see where we went," he told EWN Sport. "I was not in the position to give the club anymore of a commitment. There are a few other irons in the fire that I am excited about."

Gold confirmed he has spoken with some organistations in South Africa regarding future roles, but insisted he is now solely focused on helping Newcastle overturn an eight-point deficit at the bottom of the table and avoid relegation from the Aviva Premiership.

"There are five games to go," he said. "I love the challenge. Not everything in life is easy and this is certainly one of the more difficult challenges. It's been an unbelievable learning curve and a fantastic challenge and I believe I will be a better coach afterwards.

"I really hope that the work we are doing with this group of guys, we can continue to improve enough to pick up a couple more wins and then hopefully things will go our way. But it is largely out of our hands. If we carry on winning and Wasps carry on winning, Newcastle are still going to go down."